For more than a decade, Jerry Gidel has done annual yield checks on corn in central Illinois – walking fields, making estimates, and evaluating how the crop is stacking up compared to those in previous years.
On Tuesday, Gidel reports field checks in seven counties that circle the community of Bloomington, Ill., indicate corn yields there are going to average 198.3 bushels per acre.
At first blush, that might sound like an OK corn crop average until you look back at the yield average he calculated for the area in 2024 – 213.7 bushels. That’s a whopping 15.4 bushels more per acre than what Gidel and scouting partner, Jack Scoville, an analyst with The Price Futures Group, found in central Illinois fields last Saturday, August 9.
Gidel and Scoville say the crop there looks big, lush and beautiful, so what gives?
“I think it had to do with high overnight temperatures, which continue to be a nemesis,” Gidel told AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Tuesday.
Pollinating Corn Likes Cooler Nighttime Temps
When corn gets little to no relief at night from high daytime temps, yields tend to suffer.
“When you keep the humidity in the atmosphere, you prevent the temperature from cooling off at night. And what ends up happening is you keep those stressful night lows around. And so it’s just not ideal,” explains Eric Snodgrass, senior science fellow at Nutrien Ag Solutions.
Cooler nights (in the 60s) help to slow respiration, preserving sugars for grain development and maximizing yield, reports the Agronomic Crops Network.
Above-average nighttime temperatures were common the past few weeks in the Midwest, according to news reports on AgWeb.
What Happened In Central Illinois?
In central Illinois, the pollination issue was not only heat related, according to Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, who is based there. Nor was it a result only from the phenomenon of overly tight tassel wrap Farm Journal has reported on extensively.
Instead, Ferrie believes wet conditions at the wrong time contributed to much of the poor pollination in corn crops around the Bloomington, Ill., area.
At pollination time, many farmers saw three or four consecutive days of heavy fog and rainfall. The moisture prevented corn pollen sacks from opening on time, essentially interrupting the pollination process, Ferrie recalls.
“It caused some significant issues with our kernel set,” says Ferrie. “I’m seeing yield losses of 15- to 40-bushel hits in affected fields.”
What Corn Stand Evaluations Show
As Gidel and Scoville scouted central Illinois corn, they saw the results of poor pollination throughout the seven counties.
“When you get in there and pull husks off the ears, we found smaller ears and a lot of tip back, and that’s really what seemed to do this crop in,” Scoville says.
“That’s how you end up getting our averages for our central Illinois tour,” adds Gidel.
Flory honed in on Gidel and Scoville’s yield estimates from three Illinois counties that show how significantly they are off this season versus last year:
Ford County: 221.5 bu/a in 2024; 207.6 this year
Iroquois County: 236 bu/a in 2024; 221.9 this year
Woodford County: 257.2 bu/a in 2024; 213.6 this year
“These three are the biggest-yielding counties you guys have seen over the past couple of years,” Flory told Gidel and Scoville. “That is a fairly consistent reduction on top-end yields from a year ago, and it certainly makes me think that that the central Illinois crop is not going to be what it was a year ago.”
Gidel agrees, noting that the highest yield he and Scoville found in central Illinois this year was 222 bushels per acre. “Last year, it was 257 bushels – so 35 bushels less is a huge difference. That definitely eliminates some of your potential,” he says.
Gidel adds what he and Scofield saw in Illinois has him concerned about what the national corn yield average will total.
“It definitely doesn’t give you [the confidence] that we’re going to see the nationwide number that some people are projecting, that 185, 187 bushels versus last year’s 179.6,” he says.
Will Pro Farmer Find The Same Yield Potential As USDA?
With USDA’s bigger than expected production estimate announced Tuesday — a record high 188.8 bushels per acre for corn and 53.6 bpa for soybeans — farmers will be analyzing Pro Farmer Crop Tour reports to see if in-field observations support or contradict the agency’s estimates.
The annual Pro Farmer Crop Tour gets underway next Monday, August 18. Scouts will be sharing reports from 2,000-plus fields across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota. Learn more about the event here.
Get more of the details on what Gidel and Scoville shared regarding the central Illinois corn crop with AgriTalk’s Chip Flory here:
Your next read: USDA Shocks the Market With Corn Yields
